Ouch!

Daily Real Estate News  |  January 27, 2011  | 
Foreclosures Jump in Unexpected Cities

The foreclosure crisis is now spreading to cities that were once relatively unscathed from the crisis. Seattle, Houston, and Chicago have joined the list of other cities in the United States plagued by a growing number of foreclosures and home owners unable to make their mortgage payments.

Foreclosure activity increased in 149 of the country’s 206 largest metro areas last year, reported RealtyTrac Inc., a foreclosure listing firm.

In the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown metro area, the foreclosure rate jumped 26 percent from 2009 - the largest increase in foreclosures among the top 20 metro areas, according to RealtyTrac.

In Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, the foreclosure rate increased nearly 23 percent - ranking second in areas with the largest increases. In Georgia, the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta metro area was third with a 21 percent spike...

http://www.realtor.org/RMODaily.nsf/pages/News2011012701

Commercial Real-Estate Debt Hits Two-Year High as Investors Bet Worst Over
By Sarah Mulholland - Jan 25, 2011 7:50 AM GMT-0500

Debt investors are wagering that the worst is over for commercial real estate, driving prices on mortgage bonds to the highest in more than two years.

"Investors have gotten more comfortable and have started putting money back into CMBS," Chris Callahan, head of commercial-mortgage backed bond trading at Credit Suisse Group AG, said in an interview at the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council's conference in Washington. "It has gone from being the red-headed stepchild to being a viable asset class again."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-25/commercial-real-estate-debt-hits-two-year-high-as-investors-bet-worst-over.html

Home price slump deepens

By Les Christie, staff writer
January 25, 2011: 10:46 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- November home prices continued their latest slump, falling 1% compared with October, according to the latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index of 20 metro markets.

San Diego was the only market that didn't slip, posting a slight gain of 0.1%. The overall index fell for the fifth straight month and prices are at about the same level they were in mid-2003.

"With these numbers, more analysts will be calling for a double-dip in home prices," said David Blitzer, spokesman for Standard & Poor's...

http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/25/real_estate/november_home_prices/index.htm

Cheaper to buy than to rent in 72% of largest U.S. cities
Trulia: Former homeowners flooding rental market
By Inman News, Monday, January 24, 2011.

Despite the rising number of renters across the country, it is cheaper to buy a home rather than rent one in 72 percent of the 50 largest cities in the U.S., according to an index released by real estate search and marketing site Trulia.

"Since the start of the 'Great Recession,' many former homeowners have flooded the rental market. Following the principles of supply and demand, renting has become relatively more expensive than buying in most markets," said Pete Flint, CEO and co-founder of Trulia, in a statement.

"Though necessary for achieving true economic recovery, stricter bank lending practices have also further aggravated the struggling housing market in the short term. Even highly qualified homebuyers face intense scrutiny on their income, savings, existing debt and credit history before they can get a mortgage loan."...
http://www.inman.com/news/2011/01/24/cheaper-buy-rent-in-72-largest-us-cities

Shadow inventory threatens housing recovery

By Les Christie, staff writer
January 20, 2011: 7:34 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- There is a growing glut of foreclosed homes threatening to hit the market over the next couple of years, potentially delaying any recovery.

There were 1.7 million homes either owned by the bank or in some stage of foreclosure at the end of the third quarter of 2010, according to a recent report by Standard & Poor's. It would take 44 months, at the current rate of sales, to sell them off -- a 25% increase from the beginning of 2010. (S&P does not count home loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.)

This so-called "shadow inventory" may depress home values and delay the housing market recovery.

"The problem is you have all these properties coming down the pipeline that are nearly certain to hit the market. That's going to be a negative for the supply-demand equation," said Diane Westerback, Managing Director for S&P and an author of the report...

http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/20/real_estate/shadow_inventory_rise/index.htm

Daily Real Estate News   January 20, 2011

Global direct property investment is expected to rise 20 percent in 2011 to $380 billion, led by a sharp rise from the United States.

Commercial real estate investments - such as malls, offices, and industrial properties - reached $316 billion in 2010. That represented a 50 percent increase from an eight-year low in 2009 of $209 billion.

"Barring further sovereign debt crises or financial shocks, the momentum of 2010 is expected to continue over the next 12 months, and we predict global volumes for 2011 should increase by 20 to 25 percent," Arthur de Haast, head of Jones Lang LaSalle’s International Capital Group, told Reuters News.

The property consultancy company expects volumes in the Americas to jump 40 percent to $135 billion this year. U.S. recovery has been spurred by investor interests in New York, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco...

http://www.realtor.org/rmodaily.nsf/pages/News2011012005

By MAURA WEBBER SADOVI

By Dan Levy and Prashant Gopal - Jan 13, 2011 12:00 AM GMT-0500

The number of U.S. homes receiving a foreclosure filing will climb about 20 percent in 2011, reaching a peak for the housing crisis, as unemployment remains high and banks resume seizures after a slowdown, RealtyTrac Inc. said.

"We will peak in foreclosures and probably bottom out in pricing, and that’s what we need to do in order to begin the recovery," Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac’s senior vice president, said in an interview at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. "But it’s probably not going to feel good in the process."...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-13/u-s-foreclosure-filings-may-jump-20-this-year-as-crisis-peaks.html

- Thu Jan 13, 2:16 am ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Banks moved to repossess a record 2.87 million US homes in 2010 as the two-year-old mortgage crisis continued to weigh heavily on the economy, foreclosure specialist RealtyTrac said.

Foreclosures hit 2.23 percent of all housing units in the country, or one out of 45, an increase from 2.21 percent in 2009, RealtyTrac said in its 2010 report.

But the pace of foreclosures eased up in the fourth quarter, as banks ran into increasing legal challenges from owners angry that banks had repossessed their homes under a slipshod process...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110113/ts_alt_afp/ushousingbanking

RISMEDIA, January 12, 2011 - CoreLogic, a leading provider of information, analytics and business services released its November 2010 Home Price Index (HPI) which shows that home prices in the U.S. declined for the fourth month in a row. According to the CoreLogic HPI, national home prices - including distressed sales - declined by 5.07% in November 2010 compared to November 2009 and declined by 3.35% in October 2010 compared to October 2009. Excluding distressed sales, year-over-year prices declined by 2.21% in November 2010 compared to November 2009 and declined by 2.24% in October 2010 compared to October 2009. Distressed sales include short sales and real estate owned (REO) transactions.
http://rismedia.com/2011-01-11/corelogic-home-price-index-shows-decline-for-fourth-straight-month/

By Hui-yong Yu - Jan 6, 2011

U.S. apartment vacancies fell to a two-year low in the fourth quarter and rents rose, extending a market recovery that began in early 2010, property research firm Reis Inc. said.

The national apartment vacancy rate dropped to 6.6 percent from 8 percent a year earlier and from 7.1 percent in the third quarter, the New York-based company said in a report today. It was the lowest since 2008's third quarter, when the rate was 6.2 percent, according to Reis.

Apartment occupancies have risen as a surge in home foreclosures forced many people to lease apartments. While the 951,000 jobs added to U.S. payrolls from January to November is a fraction of the 8.4 million lost during the recession, "it is far better than the situation in early to mid-2009, when the nation was terminating hundreds of thousands of jobs per month," Reis said.

Effective rents, or what tenants actually pay, rose to an average $986 a month from $964 a year earlier and $981 in the prior quarter, Reis said. Landlords' asking rents also climbed, to $1,042 from $1,026 a year earlier and $1,037 in the third quarter, according to the report...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-06/u-s-apartment-vacancies-fall-to-2-year-low-extending-recovery.html

By Kris Hudson

...Shopping-center vacancy held steady at 10.9% in the fourth quarter, unchanged for the third consecutive quarter, Reis said. That vacancy rate remains at the highest that Reis has tracked since 1991. What is more, net absorption for U.S. shopping centers in the quarter-the net amount of new space leased-amounted to just 92,000 square feet after a gain in the previous quarter of 474,000 square feet.

Foreclosures Reach Record Highs in 2010

Daily Real Estate News  |  January 5, 2011

Foreclosures Reach Record Highs in 2010
Foreclosures were big in 2010 and buyers eager to own them came out in record numbers, Foreclosure Deals, a news source, reports.

Experts are expecting foreclosures to climb even higher in 2011.

"We saw a lot more repossessions, but we also saw record numbers of home buyers at foreclosure sales," said James Foxx, business analyst for Foreclosure Deals. "Foreclosures are selling at rock-bottom prices, and they remain the best way for first-time home buyers or investors to find the best deals. I think it's clear that statistics for foreclosures in 2011 are going to look very similar to those for foreclosure filings 2010..."

http://www.realtor.org/rmodaily.nsf/pages/News2011010502

The forecasts are rosy for the CRE market, but systemic headwinds still exist, making this a tough sector to bank on profits.

By Kit R. Roane, contributor

Until recently, the smart money saw commercial real estate as the next asset class to do a number on the economy. Now some believe it is turning into a feather in the recovery's cap. But every bet has its risks -- and in this case, better days may be farther into the future than many investors would like.

The bullish case for the commercial real estate market is that the bad news is baked in, and what's left will likely dissipate as the economy gains steam. Wells Fargo (WFC) sees commercial real estate actually contributing to growth by the second half of this year, driven by more interest in leasing, steadying rents and increasing sales...

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/01/03/why-commercial-real-estate-is-still-a-gamble/

By ANTON TROIANOVSKI

The amount of occupied U.S. office space increased for the first time in nearly three years during the fourth quarter of 2010 as more companies that had been postponing real-estate decisions got back into the leasing market.

Average office rents also rose by 0.2%, to $22.09 per square foot, registering their first uptick since the second quarter of 2008, according to property-research firm Reis Inc. While the 79 metropolitan areas tracked by Reis vary greatly, the national trend means that in many regions the balance of power is shifting to landlords from tenants.

The office market has been hard hit by job losses. From January 2008 to September 2010, businesses vacated 137.8 million square feet of office space-more than the inventory in Chicago's central business district. In the final three months of 2010, however, occupied office space in the U.S. grew by 2.5 million square feet.

On the whole, the office-market recovery remains weak...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704835504576060053365059760.html?mod=WSJ_RealEstate_MIDDLETopNews